Some Pike County Place Names: Leonard Roberts' Contributions To The Kentucky Place Name Survey

Abstract

Some Pike County Place Names: Leonard Roberts' Contributions To The Kentucky Place Name Survey Compiled and Edited by Robert M. Rennick INTRODUCTION While Leonard Roberts' contributions as a folklorist, teacher, storyteller, and editor/publisher are well known and have been described at some length by others, his interest in the place names of Pike County and his involvement with the Kentucky Place Name Survey may still be unfamiliar to most of his colleagues and admirers . The Survey was initiated in 1971 to systematically investigate the more than 100,000 named places and features in Kentucky as part of the then beginning effort to compile and analyze data on an estimated six million place names in the entire country. Sharing the goal of a county-by-county inventory and analysis of Kentucky's named places, Professor Roberts undertook, in 1971, to supply information to the Survey on the Pike County sample in Thomas Field's Guide to Kentucky Place Names (published in 1961 by the Kentucky Geological Survey, Lexington, Kentucky ). To this end, he encouraged the county residents among his Pikeville College folklore students to interview their neighbors and relatives for recollections of the places and features of their communities, especially for accounts of the origins and historic significance of their names; to his student assistants he assigned the determination of the geographic coordinates for all places and features on current topographic maps; he personally took up the search for elusive names data among fellow Pike County Historical Society members and other county residents of his acquaintance. In all, he turned over to the Survey a list of 1280 place names for some 230 of which explanatory data were included. Most of the places were located by geographic coordinates whose preparation was undoubtedly an enormous task for the students assigned to it. The parenthetic notes in the entries are by way of interpretation and supplementation from other sources. As all who knew and worked with Professor Roberts learned in their various dealings with the man, he was a most generous and enthusiastic contributor to others' interests and causes. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether he actually shared these interests or causes or whether he was simply a nice guy responding to requests for assistance. As his own work schedule permitted, he would make himself available for workshops, educational forums, storytelling sessions, and the like, and would generally answer letters and phone calls as soon as he could. He was one of the few persons involved with the Kentucky Place Name Survey who could be 51 counted on at almost any time to secure needed information or put us in touch with other data sources in his county. He never seemed too busy to make the necessary phone calls or write letters in an effort to track down some fact. On several occasions , he opened his archives to me and freely shared data that he or his students had painstakingly collected with little apparent thought of whatever possible future use he himself might wish to make of the material. Such was the selflessness of the man we honor in this special issue of Appalachian Heritage. I will always be grateful for his participation in the Kentucky Place Name Survey and wish I had had the opportunity to tell him so before he died. Editor's Note: Space does not allow for the entire document to be printed in these pages. It is hoped that the following selected excerpts will give the reader some idea of the depth and scope of Dr. Roberts' work. The full text may be secured from Dr. Rennick. Beefhide Creek* (Jenkins W., Jenkins E., Dorton) (37°14'18"N, 82°38'50"W at source; 37°17'21"N, 82°35'55"W at mouth) Heads in Letcher Co. and extends roughly nne for 5Vi mi. to Shelby Cr. at Myra. "Hunters passing through this area killed a wild bull. They couldn't carry it all so they skinned the bull and climbed a big tree to stretch the hide so the animals couldn't get to it. They needed the skin so they put wood ashes in a pit and put the skin in there with...